"ReadyBoost" or something like it using the SDHC/XC slot?

No such thing, but you can download the free MacTracker and find out how much RAM your particular Mac can hold.

If it's the new 2011 MacBook Pro's, 16GB is available at Other World Computing and likely Crucial

Just get an SSD and forget about ram forever... It may be a little price but totally worth it!

Also, ready boost is worthless technology and burns out your USB thumb drive. OSX already manages Virtual memory efficiently.

jyannotti wrote:

What SSD will work the best in my MacBook Pro? The best brand name & model and the mOst seamless and effortless one to install? Does any one work better than the others?

Most people can only afford the smaller SSD's which really are very tight on storage.

A decent sized 500GB SSD will set you back about $1500-$1800. 🙂

Also SSD's are not 100% eraseable and have limited writes.

As a regular computer user you will probably never reach the end life of the SSD by not being able to write to it anymore, also just because you cannot write to it does not mean the data disapears, the data will still be accessible. Also, what the previous poster claims is gibberish, To reach the limit on writing to an SSD you would have to write 5 GB of data per day continuously for the next 5 years to reach the limit. The SSD will outlast your computer system.

I would only load your OS on the SSD and have a HDD in the optical drive for storing all your files like movies etc... If you do that you can get away with installing a 128GB SSD and have a blazing fast system for around $250-300. Your computer will feeeeeeeeel amazing!

Here's a link to some good info on SSD's!

http://thessdreview.com/category/ssd-guides/beginners-guide/

JaEvo wrote:

To reach the limit on writing to an SSD you would have to write 5 GB of data per day continuously for the next 5 years to reach the limit. The SSD will outlast your computer system.

Since most users accumulate data and most people getting the smaller SSD drives, likely will be replaced with larger versions before they expire. Still at $200-$300 a pop that's a lot of money every few years.

Compared to one 750GB or 1TB 7,200 RPM drive that only costs a $150 or so and can be milked until it fails and gives pretty good speed and total erase capability.

I would only load your OS on the SSD and have a HDD in the optical drive for storing all your files like movies etc... If you do that you can get away with installing a 128GB SSD and have a blazing fast system for around $250-300.

One drawback of this approach is one cannot hold c and boot off the installer disks, nor can they install Windows. A internal drive is needed for this.

But the SSD as a (rarely changing) boot drive and a second larger stantard drive for files is the ideal choice.

Your computer will feeeeeeeeel amazing!

What makes a computer fast is: (in order of importance)

1: CPU

2: RAM amount (the more the better)

3: BUS speed

4: GPU performance

(4.5 Network speed)

5: Storage speed.

Remember, once the data is off the storage and into RAM, it's really not needed much anymore after that.

Yes there is the swap file, but if you have enough RAM, then this is minimalized.

The older Intel Mac's with 4GB of RAM limits certainly benefited from faster boot drives because they swapped to disk more often.

People coming from those older machines and getting a new SSD Mac think the SSD speed is wonderful, but it's only when loading/saving, transferring files to a external SSD drive. Apple has fooled a lot of people into buying something more than they needed for most.

Most people don't need to transfer large amount of files all the time, if they do, a SSD will help reduce the time about 50%. But at a huge cost in large SSD sizes.

I ran a boot RAID 0 of two 10,000 RPM "Raptors" for many years on my PowerMac G5.

Unless I was very heavily multitasking on purpose with high I/O or transfering huge amounts of files to the external RAID 0, the speed went to waste 95% of the time as 95% of the time I was using the CPU/GPU.

So ideally it's best to get as much CPU/CPU punch as possible, with the most RAM capacity possible within budget.

Storage speed is not worth paying $1500-$1800 for a fast 500GB SSD.

Thanks for the insight! Well the only reason I'm recommending the SSD is from my own experience. I have a macbook air that only has a 1.8 Ghz CPU and it loads my photoshop programs faster than my 2011 macbook pro that had a 5400 rpm HDD (before). I got tired of waiting 30 mins for my pictures to import to my new MBP when my macbook air was doing it 10x faster. I finally upgraded my mbp to a 120 gb ssd and I'm loving it... the only drawback is that I no longer have an internal optical drive (as I swapped the bay to my original HDD) and as you pointed out I can no longer boot from my installer disks...(there are alternatives) and no problems yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

JaEvo wrote:

Thanks for the insight! Well the only reason I'm recommending the SSD is from my own experience. I have a macbook air that only has a 1.8 Ghz CPU and it loads my photoshop programs faster than my 2011 macbook pro that had a 5400 rpm HDD (before). I got tired of waiting 30 mins for my pictures to import to my new MBP when my macbook air was doing it 10x faster. I finally upgraded my mbp to a 120 gb ssd and I'm loving it... the only drawback is that I no longer have an internal optical drive (as I swapped the bay to my original HDD) and as you pointed out I can no longer boot from my installer disks...(there are alternatives) and no problems yet but I'm keeping my fingers crossed...

You swapped the optical drive out for the SSD, so now your keeping your working files on the SSD like a scratch disk then.

ds store wrote:

What makes a computer fast is: (in order of importance)

1: CPU

2: RAM amount (the more the better)

3: BUS speed

4: GPU performance

(4.5 Network speed)

5: Storage speed.

Remember, once the data is off the storage and into RAM, it's really not needed much anymore after that.

Yes there is the swap file, but if you have enough RAM, then this is minimalized.

This isn't entirely accurate. There's a reason why people's perceptions of speed when they move from a traditional hard drive to an SSD are so pronounced, and why old computers with an SSD suddenly feel faster than a brand new machine with a traditional drive.

That reason is that ALL data has to come from the hard drive before it can get into RAM.

It doesn't matter how fast your CPU is, or how much RAM you have, you have to fill the RAM with data, and that data is coming from what is quickly becoming the slowest component in your computer. The hard drive has been the biggest bottleneck in computers for a long time, but it's been the most difficult to resolve because people were more willing to pay for more storage rather than a faster drive. We also reached the limit for disk speed a long time ago, and pricewise, it wasn't worth the trade off.

Now, flash memory is cheap enough to massive banks of it make for a easy way to boost performance. Yes, once you have your data in RAM, the hard drive is less important. But honestly, if you have less than 16GB of RAM, you're going to be hitting the hard drive to load a program more often than you might think. Particularly in OSX Lion, where Apple tries to keep your RAM full as often as possible.

When you go to find data, and it isn't in RAM, and the RAM is full, the computer writes out the contents of the RAM back to the hard drive (called a "page out", using the swap file you mentioned), then fills the RAM back up with the data you request from the hard drive. Yes, paging is improved dramatically when you have an SSD, but notice that you're hitting the hard drive TWICE ... once to write the data to the hard drive, and again to read new data. These are two different operations, both of which are improved with an SSD. But you're reading from the hard drive far more often than you're writing to it, it most cases, and that has nothing to do with the swap file. The only time a swap file is used is if the RAM is all full and active, and the more RAM you have, the more this is avoided. (OS X is pretty good about RAM usage, though.)

With that out of the way, you also listed "network speed" which is a misnomer. Network speed is important if you're transferring big files between computers on the same network, yes. I suspect for home users, or even in a work environment, that this is rare. Most computers and network switches are at least 100Mbit, and this is fine for most scenarios. The speed of your broadband connection is far more important, and in most cases, you're not even going to saturate a 100Mbit connection because the speed you get from your internet provider is going to be far slower. Should you pay for Gigabit switches and network connections when your broadband speed is only 20Mbit? Depends on whether or not you stream data from another machine in your house on a regular basis. If you're on a wireless network, even that is irrelevant.

GPU performance for everyday tasks reached "good enough" a long time ago. That said, if you do any work in 3D, or use programs that can use a GPU to accellerate functions, this is far more important. Of course, for gamers, this is a big deal. Choices are pretty limited in the Mac realm, but if you can get a discrete graphics solution, opt for that.

If I were going to reorder your list, I'd say it would be more like this ...

1. CPU Technology (which coincides closely with bus speed, buy the fastest, most up to date CPU you can afford, because in a Mac these are not upgradable)

2. Hard Drive speed (go with SSD if you can afford it)

3. RAM quantity (easily upgradable aftermarket, so get the minimum you can and upgrade after to the max the machine can hold)

4. GPU Performance (not easily upgradable aftermarket [except in a Mac Pro], get the best you can afford)

5. Broadband speed

6. Network speed